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Theophrastus of Eresus THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS “NARRATIVE HISTORY” AMOUNTS TO FABULATION, THE REAL STUFF BEING MERE CHRONOLOGY Theophrastus “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS 371 BCE After suffering a string of disastrous defeats during which thousands of their soldiers ran away, the Spartans were forced to resort to publicly humiliating their deserters rather than executing them all. At Eresos on the island of Lesbos in about this year, Theophrastus was born. NOBODY COULD GUESS WHAT WOULD HAPPEN NEXT Theophrastus “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS 345 BCE Aristotle moved on from Athens to spend several years at Mytilene on the island of Lesbos, where he would meet Theophrastus (his scientific collaborator and later successor at the Lyceum which eventually he would found in Athens). HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS Here is the island of Lesbos, as seen from the shore of Asia Minor: DO I HAVE YOUR ATTENTION? GOOD. Theophrastus “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS 300 BCE Theophrastus (circa 372-287 BCE), the father of Greek Botany, taught about plants from his own working knowledge of them, experience reflected in the “Inquiry” (HISTORIA PLANTARUM) and “Causes.” This text covers 550 kinds of plants, including the strawberry tree (Arbutus unedo), the date palm, figs, and water lilies. During the middle ages, these informative Theophrastan works would be generally unavailable, and 2nd-hand versions would be loaded with misinformation — thus the level of botanical knowledge available in writing actually would decline. The rediscovery and printing of his works beginning in 1483 would replace muddled interpretations of plants and help rekindle an interest in botany. For instance, here are amaranth and mandrake HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS as depicted in a 1644 edition of HISTORIA PLANTARUM: PLANTS Plant Name Place OTHERS Cherry Prunus avium Europe and Asia HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS 287 BCE Theophrastus died. HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS 1483 The plant descriptions of Theophrastus, such as his HISTORIA PLANTARUM, had during the middle ages been generally unavailable, and 2d-hand versions had been loaded with misinformation, but the rediscovery and printing of his works by Teodoro of Gaza in the Latin language began at this point — and would help to rekindle a Western interest in botany. BOTANIZING Here, for instance, are amaranth and mandrake: HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS 1623 Vespasien Robin’s botanical catalog included some new exotics from America. Gaspard Bauhin’s PINAX THEATRI BOTANICI SIVE INDEX IN THEOPHRASTI, DIOSCORIDIS, PLINII ET ... accounted for about 6,000 botanical species, pulling together uncoordinated plant names and descriptions that had appeared in Theophrastus and Dioscorides as well as in later herbals and other plant records. By accepting Bauhin’s compilation, Linnaeus would be able to avoid many of the complications of the ancient literature. LIFE IS LIVED FORWARD BUT UNDERSTOOD BACKWARD? — NO, THAT’S GIVING TOO MUCH TO THE HISTORIAN’S STORIES. LIFE ISN’T TO BE UNDERSTOOD EITHER FORWARD OR BACKWARD. Theophrastus “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS 1644 The plant descriptions of Theophrastus of Eresus had during the middle ages been generally unavailable, and secondhand versions had been loaded with misinformation, but the rediscovery and printing of his works had begun in 1483 and was helping to rekindle an interest in botany. In this year there was a new edition amounting to 1,187 pages, entitled THEOPHRASTUS ERESIUS. DE HISTORIA PLANTARUM LIBRI DECEM, GRAECE & LATINE. IN QUIBUS TEXTUM GRAECUM VARIIS LECTIONIBUS, EMENDATIONIBUS, HIULCORUM SUPPLEMENTIS:... (item rariorum plantarum iconibus illustravit Joannes Bodaeus a Stapel, medicus amstelodamensis, accesserunt Iulii Caesaris Scaligeri, in eosdem libros animadversiones: et Roberti Constantini, annotationes cum indice locupletissimo, Amstelodami) that actually had been begun years earlier, by Johannes Bodaeus van Stapel, one that contained added commentaries and drawings (Johannes himself having died in 1632, this posthumous publication was brought to completion by his father). HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS Here are amaranth and mandrake, as depicted in this new edition: HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS “Wild Apples”: There is, first of all, the Wood-Apple (Malus sylvatica); the Blue-Jay Apple; the Apple which grows in Dells in the Woods, (sylvestrivallis), also in Hollows in Pastures (campestrivallis); the Apple that grows in an old Cellar-Hole (Malus cellaris); the Meadow-Apple; the Partridge-Apple; the Truant’s Apple, (Cessatoris), which no boy will ever go by without knocking off some, however late it may be; the Saunterer’s Apple, — you must lose yourself before you can find the way to that; the Beauty of the Air (Decus Aëris); December-Eating; the Frozen- Thawed, (gelato-soluta), good only in that state; the Concord Apple, possibly the same with the Musketaquidensis; the Assabet Apple; the Brindled Apple; Wine of New England; the Chickaree Apple; the Green Apple (Malus viridis); — this has many synonyms; in an imperfect state, it is the Choleramorbifera aut dysenterifera, puerulis dilectissima; — the Apple which Atalanta stopped to pick up; the Hedge-Apple (Malus Sepium); the Slug- Apple (limacea); the Railroad-Apple, which perhaps came from a core thrown out of the cars; the Apple whose Fruit we tasted in our Youth; our Particular Apple, not to be found in any catalogue, — Pedestrium Solatium; also the Apple where hangs the Forgotten Scythe; Iduna’s Apples, and the Apples which Loki found in the Wood; and a great many more I have on my list, too numerous to mention, — all of them good. As Bodaeus exclaims, referring to the cultivated kinds, and adapting Virgil to his case, so I, adapting Bodaeus, — “Not if I had a hundred tongues, a hundred mouths, An iron voice, could I describe all the forms And reckon up all the names of these wild apples.” CHANGE IS ETERNITY, STASIS A FIGMENT Theophrastus “Stack of the Artist of Kouroo” Project HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS 1840 November 2, Monday: The presidential election. We have no record that Henry Thoreau voted in Concord, Massachusetts (but then, we have no record that Abraham Lincoln voted in Lawrenceville, Illinois). Monday Nov 2nd 1840. It is well said that the “attitude of inspection is prone.” The soul does not inspect but behold. Like the lily or the crystal in the rock, it looks in the face of the sky. Francis Howell says that in garrulous persons “The supply of thought seems never to rise much above the level of its exit.”1 Consequently their thoughts issue in no jets, but incessantly dribble. In those who speak rarely, but to the purpose, the reservoir of thought is many feet higher than its issue. It takes the pressure of a hundred atmospheres to make one jet of eloquence. For the most part the thoughts subside like a sediment, while the words break like a surf on the shore. They are being silently deposited in level strata, or held in suspension for ages, in that deep ocean within — Therein is the ocean’s floor whither all things sink, and it is strewed with wrecks. {One-fourth page blank} 1. THE CHARACTERS OF THEOPHRASTUS; TRANSLATED FROM THE GREEK, AND ILLUSTRATED BY PHYSIOGNOMICAL SKETCHES. TO WHICH ARE SUBJOINED THE GREEK TEXT, WITH NOTES, AND HINTS ON THE INDIVIDUAL VARIETIES OF HUMAN NATURE. By Francis Howell. Theophrastus translated by Isaac Taylor (London: Architectural Library, Josiah Taylor 1824). THEOPHRASTUS HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS 1859 December 16, Friday: Henry Thoreau checked out, from Harvard Library, the 2d volume of a 5-volume set prepared 1818-1821 (THEOPHRASTI ERESII QUAE SUPERSUNT OPERA: ET EXCERPTA LIBRORUM by Theophrastus of Eresus (circa 372-circa 287BCE), JOHANN GOTTLOB SCHNEIDER, HEINRICH FRIEDRICH LINK. Lipsiae: Sumtibus HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS Frid. Christ. Guil. Vogelii) of . THEOPHRASTUS He also checked out the two volumes of Aristotle’s HISTOIRE DES ANIMAUX D’ARISTOTE in Greek and in the HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS French translation by M. Camus (Paris: Chez la veuve Desaint, 1783). HISTOIRE DES ANIMAUX I HISTOIRE DES ANIMAUX II HDT WHAT? INDEX THEOPHRASTUS OF ERESUS THEOPHRASTUS While at the Harvard Library, Thoreau read from but did not check out John Gerard’s 1597 botanical resource, THE HERBALL OR GENERALL HIſTORIE OF PLANTES: GREAT HERBALL OF 1597 INTERNET COMMENTARY December 16, 1859: A.M.–To Cambridge, where I read in Gerard’s Herbal. [Vide extracts from preface made in October 1859.] His admirable though quaint descriptions are, to my mind, greatly superior to the modern more scientific ones. He describes not according to rule but to his natural delight in the plants. He brings them vividly before you, as one who has seen and delighted in them. It is almost as good as to see the plants themselves. It suggests that we cannot too often get rid of the barren assumption that is in our science. His leaves are leaves; his flowers, flowers; his fruit, fruit. They are green and colored and fragrant. It is a man’s BOTANY knowledge added to a child’s delight. Modern botanical descriptions approach ever nearer to the dryness of an algebraic formula, as if c + y were = to a love-letter. It is the keen joy and discrimination of the child who has just seen a flower for the first time and comes running in with it to its friends. How much better to describe your object in fresh English words rather than in these conventional Latinisms! He has really seen, and smelt, and tasted, and reports his sensations.
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